Editorial: Don't forget your child is in the car

MONDAY RELEASE AND AFTER - High temps turn cars into ovens killing strapped in children

Editorial

It is difficult to write about a tragedy such as this, yet given the numbers of children who have died in hot cars, it seems even worse to stay silent.

Last Thursday, a 7-month-old girl was found dead in a car in the parking lot of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The girl apparently had been strapped in a car seat for about three hours. Outside temperatures were in the mid to upper 90s, meaning the cars interior could easily have reached 140 degrees. Just hours after the St. Louis girl died, a 2-year-old girl was found dead from the heat in a vehicle in a suburb of Cincinnati.

No one wants to further torture these parents. It is almost unimaginable the grief one would feel, knowing through a mistake your child had lost her life.

If this were an incredibly rare and bizarre occurrence, we would likely remain silent, knowing that nothing would be gained from commenting on what is so clearly a tragic accident. Yet, what is truly tragic is just how common such deaths have become.
While the death of the seven-month-old girl was the first such case in Missouri this year, it was the 12th in that state since 1998, according to the Associated Press. And the little girl who died in Ohio became the 23rd child to die from being left in a hot car this year in the United States. We're not sure how that fact hits you, but it seriously shocked us.

It seems apparent in these two most recent cases that these were certainly not neglectful parents. The youngest girl's father is a research analyst at the nearby medical school in St. Louis and her mother is a staff physician at St. Louis Children's Hospital.

The 2-year-old's mother is an assistant principal at a school in suburban Cincinnati. A friend of the woman, who has two other children, described her as "the mother of the year," saying she even made her own baby food.

In both cases, the children were secured into child-safety seats. That is certainly an indication the parents had the best interests and safety of the child in mind. The rush of the modern world can make all of us a bit scatterbrained. We dash to our jobs in the morning while also trying to balance our spouse and children's needs. Forgetting to pack someone's lunch or to pick up the dry cleaning is one thing.

But how can we be so rushed as to forget a child in the car? As the gruesome statistics show, however, such deadly mistakes do happen. And the mistake need not last long on the kind of hot days we have seen this summer. The interior of a car sitting in the hot sun can reach a temperature of 125 degrees in just eight minutes if the windows are rolled up.

Combine the fact that cars can become ovens so quickly with the fact that small children are especially susceptible to hyperthermia, and you can see just how quickly such a tragedy can occur.

A Boston University School of Public Health study of 171 car-heat deaths of children between 1995-2002 found that 27 percent were children who gained access to unlocked vehicles, but 73 percent (125) were children who were left by adults. More than a quarter of the adults were aware they were leaving children in the vehicles, while half were unaware or forgot.

We place our children in car seats to protect them. Yet laws requiring the car seats to be out of our sight have almost surely contributed to some parents forgetting the children. That is not an excuse; it is merely a fact. And it is a grim reminder that no amount of morning frazzle should allow us to forget those we hold most precious.

Mike Matulis, editorial page editor, can be reached at the Springfield State Journal-Register at mike.matulis@sj-r.com

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